Reading Potions

If you exclude Number One Hope and count only the three generations of Hopes—Number Two, Number Three, and Number Four—the average time each one had was three to four months.

But in reality, there's no way to determine exactly when Number Two Hope appeared, nor can it be confirmed that each Hope had an equal amount of time.

Only Wilbur likely knows the more detailed timeline, but asking too specifically might come across as suspicious...

Hope casually chatted with Lavinia about the previous Hopes, replacing references to his predecessors with phrases like "back when I was earlier."

He learned that Number Four Hope loved fish, Number One Hope was adorable as a child, and one of Number Two Hope and Number Three Hope once swore, "One day, I'll never eat canned peas again."

Hope actually felt a bit sorry for that guy—before the day of escaping canned peas ever arrived, he was already gone, alive or dead unknown.

"When was this notebook brought over?" Hope showed Lavinia the Common Herb Collection.

He wasn't worried that Writer Hope had secretly obtained it himself, since the book wasn't hidden at all—it was placed openly in the room.

"Have you already filled it up?"

Lavinia flipped through the book casually.

"Yes." It had been filled for a while, but Hope certainly wasn't going to argue about that.

"It seems like... five or six months ago, you asked me to find it for you. Do you want another one?"

Five or six months... Chronologically, Writer Hope was most likely Number Three Hope, but he couldn't be sure yet, so he'd still refer to him as "Writer Hope" for now.

"No need," Hope said.

Lavinia wanted to leave.

Hope finally brought up the newspaper matter with her, and Lavinia agreed readily, but it had to start tomorrow, and Hope had to do it just like today.

"Like today?" Hope was confused.

"Just split your food with me... well, except for the canned peas—you can eat those yourself."

Was she never full?

After cycling between staring blankly at the ceiling and reading Common Herb Collection several times, Hope finally waited for nightfall.

In the meantime, neither Wilbur nor Lavinia came back to "check on" Hope.

He even dared to teleport to the rooftop to breathe some fresh air for a while, though he was so nervous the whole time that he practically pressed his ear to the roof, terrified of missing footsteps or a knock.

Feeling the time was about right, Hope first returned to the Rose Garden, then immediately came back to the room, grabbing only Elizabeth's Pocket Watch.

Nine thirty-three.

He didn't head straight to Old Williams' rooftop to brew the Reading Potion, because brewing took relatively more time, and Hope wanted to wait until it was later.

He pressed his eye to the small pocket watch—when bored, even counting the second hand's ticks became amusing.

Nine thirty-four and five seconds...

Rolled over...

Nine fifty-five and seventeen seconds...

Rolled over who knows how many times...

Eleven fifty and one second...

Hope felt the moment had come. He first freed himself from the handcuffs, then tossed them under the bed—that way, if something unexpected happened, he could pretend he'd crawled under the bed to look for something, leaving some room for explanation.

He took the pen and contract paper from under the bedside table, carried them on him, thought for a moment, and grabbed his water cup too.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw dark clouds covering the moon.

The slip of paper with the potion recipe lay quietly at the edge of the roof, trembling in the breeze. Hope hadn't stored it properly last night, yet it still hadn't blown off.

Even though he'd already memorized the contents, Hope read it again:

"Five grams of Star Hemp, ten grams each of three colors of dried rose petals, five hundred grams of water, one page of paper with writing.

"Boil for thirty minutes, let cool naturally."

Hope folded the recipe along its original creases twice and tucked it into the scrap paper in the utility room.

There were plenty of old newspapers in the utility room, but unfortunately, Hope didn't dare take a single one back to read.

Old Williams' herbs were all still there: dried rose petals in red, white, and yellow, and Star Hemp—these ingredients seemed to now belong to Elizabeth's property; he'd have to mention it to her next time...

Using someone else's belongings without permission was terribly rude, but Hope had no other options right now.

He could get plain water from downstairs, but he didn't know if it needed to be ordinary water or distilled water.

Probably not distilled water... there was no distillation equipment here, nor any packaged distilled water around... he could try plain water first.

Hope already knew that even consuming the ingredients directly could suppress Star Hemp's toxicity, so even if plain water didn't work, there wouldn't be serious consequences.

The most critical part was the page filled with writing.

Hope found a blank sheet of paper in the utility room, then, after some thought, tore off half a newspaper page without images.

He decided to first try using the newspaper written in New Federation language as the material.

Regardless of whether the Reading Potion had a translation function, he at least needed to ensure the potion could be successfully brewed.

Using New Federation language, a successfully brewed potion would naturally grant Hope the "accelerated reading" ability.

Using Russian directly wouldn't achieve this effect, because Hope himself doesn't understand Russian—if he still couldn't read it after drinking the potion, he'd have no way to tell whether the potion lacked translation functionality or if he'd brewed it wrong.

A small scale sat on the table, its weights slightly rusted, which put Hope at ease—scale weights were precision instruments, especially for tiny ones like these gram and five-gram pieces; rust would seriously compromise their accuracy.

Rusted weights meant that when Old Williams brewed potions, he wasn't as meticulous as Hope had imagined, but rather operated with a "good enough" mindset, without strict demands on weight precision.

High fault tolerance meant Hope didn't have to worry too much about failure.

Once the herbs were measured and it was time to light the fire, Hope paused for a moment, then chuckled:

He'd actually forgotten—Old Williams even used a gas stove and a small iron pot.

With that, Hope relaxed, quietly waiting as the mixture of herbs and paper in the small iron pot turned into a potion bearing extraordinary power.

He occasionally stirred the contents with a wooden rod beside the pot.

Hope had once watched cartoons where the witch stirring her cauldron looked utterly sinister. Now that he was doing the same thing himself, he found it no different from stirring a stew—rather than fusing the herbs together, the main purpose was to keep the leaves from settling at the bottom and burning from the high heat.

During a break in stirring, he used "Uncertainty" to slip into the storage room, grabbed a few outdated newspapers to pass the time, and found most of them discussing politics, interspersed with a few politicians' speeches.

Reading this stuff certainly helped him understand how this country operated... but he knew nothing about politics, and reading it only reminded him that it was already past midnight and time to sleep.

Just as he was about to give up finding any amusement in them, a newspaper called the Arkham Tribune caught his eye with a substantial article:

"The Best University—Miskatonic University's 235th Anniversary Celebration"